


Sparks and Cinders

by Lil_Lola_Blue



Series: Fire: Harry Potter and the Grand and Exalted Order of the Satyr [2]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Alchemy, F/M, Gen, Mayhem, Multi, Murder, Polyamory, Polyandry, Polygamy, Sex, Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll, Sex Magick, Ultraviolence, high ceremonial magick, play with fire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-08 07:19:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8835421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lil_Lola_Blue/pseuds/Lil_Lola_Blue
Summary: This chapter. O Best Beloved is about beginnings and endings. About what came before the flames, and what was left after they burnt away. In this story chapter, we meet a Dark Man, a Man In Black, a man with a past called Severus Snape. A man with great and secret power who stands in the shadows, biding his time. And we meet a boy, with great courage and great promise, but who is never as saintly as that sounds. This is the story of how a war that never ended began again, and what happened when it finally ended. A tale of secret magic and forbidden rites amid an era of sex, drugs, war and a lot of the good old ultraviolence. Or is it a tale of an orphan who grew up unwanted and neglected, adopted by a reformed villain, who may or may not be the boy's true father, and loved the boy's mother, above all things. It could be the story of a driven man, who drove his son, by blood or no, into the same fate as she was driven in his boyhood, only to see his son grow up to be too much like both his fathers? Or maybe it is a story of a man and his son and the woman they both loved, even if she hated the thought of such a word? In the sparks and the cinders, it is all of those things, and more.





	1. The Devil or the Dursleys?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we discover that it was something a little less dramatic than letters from the sky or Hagrid on a motorcycle that sprung Harry from the Dursleys.

 

** The Dursley Residence, Summer Before Year One **

Harry Potter lay in his narrow bed, in the little room under the stairs, engulfed in his cousin’s huge hand-me-down pyjamas, thinking about what had happened with the snake, at the zoo.

Nothing like that had ever happened to him in his entire life.

Nothing.

Ever.

Not once in his entire depressing, miserable, underprivileged, and yet uneventful and boring life.

It made him forget living in a closet under the stairs, and having to wear Dudley’s hand-me-downs, and tripping and falling all the time because he couldn’t see with his old glasses and his pants were always too big and too long.

It made him forget how he was something of an afterthought in the minds of Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia; the only time they did seem to consider him was when they wanted to tell him how lucky he was that they were looking after him.

Harry supposed it wasn’t exactly child abuse.

No, that had to do with being beat up, or being shouted at all the time, and his guardians couldn’t be bothered to notice him long enough to do anything like that.

It was neglect, that’s’ what it was.

Well, bugger them, Harry had learned to look after himself.

He slipped out of his room at night to eat when he was hungry; those fat bastards would never accuse each other of snacking all night; they were too fat and too ashamed.

If he really needed money, he knew how to siphon it off, chance and the odd fiver from Uncle Vernon’s bulging pockets, a quid or two when Aunt Petunia left the shopping money on the table.

His favourite thing to do was to steal their cigarettes; he’d steal one or two every day and lie in bed at night and smoke them, just because he knew it was bad and he was stealing from them.

Little things like that, a bit here and a bit there, Harry got by.

But that thing with the snake?

That was really something.

He was falling off to sleep when there came a heavy knock at the door, like on telly, when the police came.

The heavy knock repeated.

“This is the NSPCC and the police. We have a court order. Open this door, or we shall break it down.”

Harry heard Uncle Vernon coming down the stairs.

They had done it, the bastards.

They called some Children’s Home, to have him taken into care.

It was the fags.

That was a bridge too far, stealing their smokes.

Shit!

Harry heard Uncle Vernon’s voice protesting and bellowing, and Aunt Petunia’s shrill wail.

He didn’t know what to do.

There was no window.

Then, a very angry voice, in a thick Northern accent that sounded like one of the Beatles.

“What’s this room, here? Get out of the fookin’ way, Petiunia!”

“I won’t let you have him! Officer, you can’t let this man have the boy. He’s a villain! I would know, I know his whole villainous family. Degenerates. Drug addicts! Villains!”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Dursley. I’m sure you have a right to an appeal. I have my orders from the court. You’ll have to back away from that door.”

Harry heard the heavy sound of hobnailed boost on the paneling, the door opened, and he saw them, when the light came on.

Two big black hobnailed engineer's boots, sticking out from the cuffs of a faded pair of black Levis.

“My God!” the policeman gasped.

“Has the boy been smoking in here?” a woman’s voice insisted.

“Probably. I’m sure it’s one of the few pleasures in life the lad can steal. Look you! You see? You see who’s a fookin’ villain! Look at this place! He’s hiding under the bed. God only knows what he expects is coming, now.”

The boots were replaced by a long, thin, ugly face, a right villain's boatrace, with a long lantern jaw, a pointy chin, a beaky nose, a coarse goatee and sharp, dark eyes.

A long arm reached towards him, at the end of which was a big hand, with long fingers.

“Hello, Potter. I was friends with your Mum. I’ve been fighting over you in the courts for five years. Come on out. I’m here to take you away, and you never have to come back.”

“Who says?” Harry asked.

“The police. The courts. The Queen, herself, if you like.”

That was all Harry had to hear.

He didn’t care if it was the Devil coming for him, as long as he was leaving.

He took the man’s hand, and the man hauled him out from under the bed, easily.

He was a tall man, thin, wiry and rawboned, all angles and sinew, dressed all in black, with long, coarse, straight black hair cut to frame his long face.

He looked like the very Devil, this Man in Black, but Harry didn’t care a monkey’s.

“Look at him! He’s all wrapped in that fat boy’s old pyjamas. Look at his scrawny chest, and the scratch on his face. The tape on his glasses…”

The tall man pulled a large furry blanket out from under his long black military coat, wrapped Harry in it and lifted him into his arms.

They were surprisingly strong, and the blanket seemed to nestle around him on its own, in a very comforting way.

“You’re going to burn in hell for this, Petunia Evans. And I know a son of the Devil, so I can see to it that you fookin’ well do.” He said.

Venomously.

Aunt Petunia looked terrified, like some kind of dark wizard out of D & D had put a horrible curse on her soul.

Harry wondered what the man in black meant by that.

Could he put horrible curses on a person’s soul?

He sure looked like he could.

The man carried him past the police cars, with all the lights flashing, out to a large old van.

Another man got out of it.

He was a big, solid ginger Scotsman, in a kilt and a white vest, and boots.

He had a big red-gold beard, and his bushy, coarse hair was like a halo; it made him look like a lion; a lion’s head sitting on top of a square granite slab of a chest, and two short, thick legs and short, burly rams carrying it about.

The Scotsman and the man in black had the same lantern jaw, and the same beaky nose, and their hands looked the same, but the Scotsman was almost a foot shorter than the man in Black.

“Is that our Harry, at last? Let me have him, Sev.”

 “Da, you’ve got to go in there and get his kit. If I go I’ll murder that skinny cunt and her fat husband, rozzers and all!’ The Man in Black snarled.

 Harry laughed.

“There’s the family sense of humor.” The big ginger man said.

 “I’ll go.”

 Harry heard a tinkling from the back seat of the van, like gipsy bells, and the woman’s  voice had a lilting Northern accent, but didn’t sound coarse like the men’s.

 She got out of the van, all bells tinkling, and she was dressed like a gipsy, in a long flowing skirt and one of those drapey blouses, and she had a scarf with bells tied around her waist, and a shawl with bells and fringes around her shoulders.

She was tall, and lean, with long black hair, and the same deep, dark eyes as the Man in Black, but unlike him, she was very beautiful.

“Ellie, don’t lose your temper…” the Ginger Scotsman said.

“If I do, you can be sure it won’t be my fists I raise. And I have a little surprise for the Dursleys.”

She got a vial of something out of her pocket in the skirt.

The Man In Black and the gipsy woman both smiled diabolical smile.

_She has to be his Mum. She doesn’t look old enough to be his Mum, but she has to be, and the Scotsman is his Da. The man in Black._

_But who are they to me?_

_Shut the fuck up, Harry Potter. They are taking you away from the Dursleys. And the courts had five years of hearings and gave you to the Man In Black. They wouldn’t have done that if these people were worse than the Dursleys. Just shut the fuck up._

 “Let us see him, Sev, if you won’t let him go. Can you turn your head, Harry?” the Gipsy woman asked.

“Wot’s this? Wot happened to your face?” the Ginger Scotsman insisted.

“I fell. Me pants are too long. And me glasses are broken. And old. I can’t see.” Harry told him.

“You fell, did you? Well, when I was a drinkin’ man, an’ I got in me cups, I’ll admit, I slapped your…stepdad around, some. But never in the face. Never with a closed fist. Not like my old man, the Devil take him. I used to tell people as to how I fell, too. Sev, you had better let the rozzers bring Harry’s things out. I might go berserk, too.”

 “I’ll go, I said. Did you really fall, Harry.”

 “Yeah. They don’t pay enough attention to me to bother to beat me up.”

The Man In Black laughed.

 “I wish your Grandma hadn’t paid that much attention to me.”

 “You were another Damien, when you were our Harry’s age! Alright, Harry, at the time, your grand-dad and I we weren’t clean. Or sober. And I’ll admit, no one in this family is even close to respectable. We might not have been the beast of parents. But we had quite a little demon for a son! He stole from us while we were asleep! Took the car all the way into town, when he was ten years old, and wrecked into two other cars, parking it! One year he set the Christmas tree on fire. I woke up to him laughing while it burned. If I didn’t know…well it was a good job Sev didn’t burn the house down.”

“You were terrible parents. No., I take that back. Da was alright. He was drunk, when he was home, but if he wasn’t too drunk, he was fine. But when Da was at sea and I was alone with you? Worst Mum ever. If I hadn’t been such a mean, evil ugly kid, you would have sold me for a fix.” The Man in Black complained.

"You had better be joking, Severus Tobias Snape! After what we put up with from you, between the time you were 15 and twenty? Do you think anyone else but your family would have had you, then?Where else would you have gone? Who else but villians the likes of your father and I would have had any heart for the likes of you?" 

The Gipsy Woman's dark eyes went black as a shark's, in her sudden anger. 

"Mum..." 

"You shut your gob! Do you thing we'd of had to fight for our Harry for all these years if you hadn't doe the things you did? And I'm not even thinking on the dope, or the booze, or the slags and the fighting! I left my home, I left my family, I aborted his child, when I was 15 years old, to get away from him! If I hadn't met your father, I don't know what I would have done, how much worse I would have been, if not for Toby. Then, you went back to him! You became his right hand, or i should say his left hand! Maybe I wasn't the world's greatest Mum, but I was a child, myself, married to a sailor ten years older than me, always at sea, and i was at sea! Don't you cat like you don't knwo what drove me to the bottle, and the needle. That man, that fookin' thing, that son of the Devil, he drove you to it, too!"

"Ellie, you're scaring the boy! He's not heard the best part of all that magic shite, and you're letting slip the worst. Don't you worry, Harry. That man's dead, the bastard!" The Ginger Scotsman interrupted.

The man in Black changed the subject. 

“That’s why I went to boarding school, Potter. They put me in care. Wouldn’t let me see me Mum and Da again until I was 16. Well, i used to sneak back home, around Chrimble, and our birthdays and all. But by the time I was 16? Petunia had me right. I was a villain, a drunk, a drug addict, and a degenerate. And Me Mum has me right, too. That wasn't the worst of it. Not by far. But the needle and the bottle and all, over, now. It has been, for ten years. We’re all clean and sober. I’m a schoolteacher. At the boarding school where I used to go when I was your age. So, you’re alright.”

"What about the man who's the son of the Devil? You can't be dead if the Devil's your father, can you? What if he comes back?"

"That's what worried me. But now you've got me to look after you, Potter. He won't get past me, the old bastard. Never. I hope he does come back. Naff old cunt! I'll personally send him and all his follower straight to hell, whether its with a wand, a gun, a headsman's sword or me own bare hands. Let them come back. I'll see them all fookin' well dead." 

Harry wasn’t sure what to say.

But these people didn’t fuck about, when they talked, so he decided not to, either.

“I believe you. And I don’t care a monkey’s if you was all axe murderers. Even if you still were. Anyone has to be better than the Dursleys.” Harry replied.

 “There’s that Snape sense of humor, again. I’m telling you, Sev—“

 “Shut up, Toby. It’s not our place to say. Now you boys wait a bit, and I’ll be back, with our Harry’s things.” The gipsy woman said.

Harry sat in the van between the two men, wrapped in the blanket.

The Man in Black gave him a Twix candy bar.

Harry’s favorite.

They were both smoking, but they were careful to blow the smoke out the wing windows of the van.

“Can I have one?” Harry asked.

 “Not until you’re 16.” The man in Black said.

“You mean I have to quit?” Harry asked.

The Man In Black handed him another Twix bar.

As Harry was finishing that one up, the lady from across the street, Mrs. Figg, she and the gipsy woman came with two policemen, who had two large cardboard cartons.

“There’s Harry’s things. You be a good boy, Harry. You’re going home now.” She said.

Harry jumped into the back, with the gipsy lady, still wrapped in the blanket, to watch the Dursley’s miserable house and his miserable street fade into the distance.

He shouted after it, swearing triumphantly and shaking his fist.

“Potter!” the Man in Black said, sharply, in a tone that made harry stop shouting, and get back in the front.

“Don’t swear like that in front of people outside the family. Personally, I don’t care a monkey’s how much you swear. But don’t do it in public. Ever. Are we clear?”

The Man In Black’s devilish face looked quite stern, his eyebrow raised.

            “Yes, sir.” Harry said.

            “Don’t call me sir, Potter. I’m your…stepfather.”

            “Yeah? Well I had a Dad. And A Mum. But they died. Car crash.”

            “Call me Snape. That’s me name, after all.”

            “What do I call your Dad? And your Mum?”

            “Grand-dad. And Mum.”

            “Okay. Where are we going, Mr. Snape?”

            “Home. To Liverpool.”

            “When are you going to tell him about the magic, Sev?”

            “Later.”

            Harry  went into the back and laid down on the back seat, next to the gipsy lady, with his head on her leg.

  Snape and Grand-dad, woke him up to stop at McDonalds, for breakfast, and then he fell asleep, again, and didn’t wake up until they got to the small house at the end of the street.

            It wasn’t as fancy a street as where the Dursleys lived, but Harry liked the place; it looked very old, and it was right on a river; the river practically ran through the side garden.

            “What river’s that?” Harry asked.

            “It’s the Mersey.” Grand-dad said

            “Like in the songs?”

            “That’s right, Harry, lad.”

            Still smoking, Mr. Snape unlocked the door, and he took Harry’s boxes in.

            “Well, I’m going to have to take the boy round to the shops, after we get some sleep. I’ll bring him over for dinner in a few days. Give him some time to get used to me, before he meets the rest of the family.”

            “A few days, Sev?” Grand-dad protested.

            “Two days, Severus. My parents have waited long enough. We all have---“

Mum protested.

            “How long have I waited? Ten years! Cant I have a few fookin’ days with me own…stepson?” the Man in Black angrily replied.

            “No later than Monday. You said he wouldn’t take to your father and I, right off, and our Harry has.”

            “Wednesday. I have to explain everything.”

            “Tuesday, Sev. You might need some help with those explanations.”

Snape scowled.

            “Fine.”

            “Go on, Harry. You’re home now.” Grand-dad told him.

            Snape helped Harry down from the van, and Harry walked with him, holding his hand, up the walk, and up the front steps.

            They stopped to wave at grand-dad on his van, then went into the kitchen and Snape put the kettle on.

            They sat at the kitchen table.

            “What’s this place called, Snape?” Harry asked.

            “Vauxhall. The street's Spinner’s End. It's not the best of neighborhoods, but it never was. I liked it better before it was loaded with fookin' chavs, but this street is still pretty quiet. Quiet enough. How are you with your fists, Potter?" 

"Pretty good. I've had to be. They take the piss out of me at school. Because I'm weird, and I'm always wearing old clothes, and I've got no parents." 

"Good. You let these fucking chav's know you're my boy, and you let them know with your fists besides, just once? They'll leave you be. Bullies are usually cowards. you stand up to them and they back down. I never back down. Ever. I never have, and I never will. Even if it lands me in hospital, or on a slab. You can't back down from a berk who only understands violence. School is different. I don't want you settling things with your fists, there. In all the time i was at school, i only got into one fight and they took the piss out of me, too. Mind you, I knew what i was capable of. I only let meself be goaded into it, once. I put a boy in the Infirmary for a week, and your Mum stopped speaking to me for the rest of the school year. Lily said taht wa sit, she'd never speak to me again. She didn't, and when she did come back, to much had happened. But she came back. She always did. 

Snape got a faraway look on his face, and for a moment, he looked angry and sad at the same time. Then he shook himself out of it.

"Well, you'll be alright, here, Potter. I grew up in this house. Now it’s mine. Well, ours. And you won’t even have to sleep under the stairs, anymore. You have a proper bedroom. With a proper bed.”

            “Were you friends with my Mum and Dad, Snape?”

            “I was friends with your Mum. She was my best friend, in all the world, while we were growing up. And when we were at school. She left a letter, with the Headmaster of the school I teach at. Mr. Dumbledore. It said that if anything happened to her and…to her and James Potter, then she wanted me and another friend, Sirius Black, to have you.”

            “Where’s Mr. Black?”

            “He’s in jail. For life.”

            “Did he kill somebody?”

            “He helped somebody to kill a lot of people.”

            “Oh. Are you married?”

            “No. But I know a few women. Quite a few. Big surprise, an ugly bloke like me?”

            “Not really. You look like a pirate. Or a gangster. You know. Like on the telly. The ugly kind girls like.” Harry observed.

            “So I’m told.” Snape laughed.

            “Well, do any girls live here with us?”

            “No. But my very good friend, Sibyl, she comes here three nights a week. And stays over.”

            “Oh. Is she nice?”

            Snape went to make the tea.

            “Desperately. Do you know what a hippie is, Potter/”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Sibyl never got past being one. She’s the Earth Mother tape.”

“You mean, New-Agey like?”

“That’s it. Sibyl means well. But she's always trying to get me to do yoga. and quit smoking. Sibyl's always telling me that the four food groups are not Sugar, Caffeine, Fat and Salt. Granted, she’s a little bit loony, but she comes about it, honestly. She was going to marry Sirius Black. Now all she has left is me. If you ask me, I was always the better man, even when we were at school. Still, you’ll like Sibyl. She’s one woman in a million. Under all that bollocks, she’s hard as a diamond, just as rare and just as beautiful. She’s got a beautiful soul. You don’t see much of that, in this world. And not usually around a man the likes of me.”

“I know. Most people are shite, and most things are just fuckin’ awful.” Harry agreed.

            “Try not to forget that, Potter. Things are going to seem rosy to you, soon. But don’t let your guard down. Not ever. Keep your eye out for trouble. Always.”

            “I will, Snape. Your Sibyl, she’s not like Aunt Petunia, then, is she?”

            “Gods, no! The fookin’ Whore of Babylon sitting in Hell isn’t as nasty as Petunia Evans. She was always nasty. Even when she was a kid.”

            Snape set a teacup in front of Harry.

            “It smells funny.”

            “It won’t taste funny. Drink it.”

            Harry drank his tea.

It did taste very good, but not like anything Harry had ever tasted before.

            “What’s in it.”

            “Health potions. You need them.”

            After he had his tea, Snape showed Harry where his bedroom was.

There were some pyjamas on the bed, new ones, green and black plaid, and the bedroom had air conditioning, it was on very high, in the window.

On the pillow was a green and purple stuffed dragon, with one green head and one purple head.

“Her name is Lily. She’ll keep you company, at night, and keep all the things you’re afraid of out of your bedroom. Including me.”

“You’re scary, Snape, but I’m not afraid of you.”

“Wait until you go to school, Potter. You will be. You and all your little bastard friends. Now. Off to bed. Tomorrow I have a lot of things to explain to you that’ll make you think I’m a loony. But I’ll show you I’m not. ”

***

It was a very nice room, large and airy, with an old-fashioned window seat and a high ceiling, lots of room, and furniture, real furniture to keep his things in.

There was a desk under the bed, and the bed was built up over the desk, like a loft, with a ladder to climb in, and the big old peaked roof was right above Harry’s head.

As Harry fell asleep, the sun was coming up, and his blinds went down, all on their own, and a sort of night-light came on, but he didn’t see where it was plugged in.

He wondered how that happened.

Maybe it was the magic Grand-dad had been talking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, that was the nice bit. In the next chapter, we meet a much older Harry, and a far-different homecoming.


	2. The Man Who Couldn't Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, we saw the first spark of Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. Now its' time to peer into the cinders and have a look at Harry Potter, the Man Who Couldn't Die.

 

** Liverpool, 2010 **

The first Muggle policeman looked in the unconscious man’s wallet.

“Harry James Potter. Lives in down in Surrey, in one of those big old houses. 12 Grimmauld…”

A card fell onto the ground.

The second cop picked it up.

“Listen to this. TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: MY HUSBAND WORKS FOR THE GOVERNMENT, IN THE SECURITY SERVICES. HE IS A WAR VETERAN WITH PTSD, HE DRINKS, AND HE IS ARMED AND DANGEROUS **AT ALL TIMES**. PLEASE DO NOT AWAKEN HIM FORCEFULLY. PLEASE DO NOT ARREST HIM.  **HE WILL HARM YOU, SERIOUSLY.** CALL THIS MOBILE NUMBER, AND ASK FOR HERMIONE GRANGER. I WILL COME AND PICK HIM UP, OR SEND SOMEONE QUALIFIED.”

The two cops looked down at the man.

He didn’t look dangerous, with his glasses askew, and his goatee untrimmed, his disorderly black hair, lying there in Levis, boots, a duffel coat and a Star Wars tee shirt and a thermal.

One of the cops opened his coat, a little.

He had a gun and a wand and a badge in special pockets in his coat.

The cop gently lifted the badge.

He didn’t know what the wand was.

“He’s with MI5. Poor devil. Mr. Pottter?”

The policeman spoke conversationally, softly, the way you would to awaken a sleeping attack dog.

Mr. Potter opened one eye.

“Huh? Oh. Rozzers. Coppers, I mean. Don’t call me wife. I’m in enough trouble. I can get up. I’ll make it.”

The younger cop helped him stand up.

“Are you alright, sir?”

“Fine. Thanks. My old man’s house is right over in Vauxhall. At Spinner’s End. It’s a short walk. I can make it.”

The policemen looked at one another, and at Mr. Potter, leaning on a lamp-post, lopsidedly lighting a cigarette.

“Sir, you’re in no shape for a half-hour walk.”

They called him a cab.

                                                           

                                                                        ***

It was Wednesday, so Hermione was in the company of Severus Snape.

“Look, Toby. All the lights are on.” She observed.

“It’s Potter, I’ll bet. Drunken little shit.”

“Listen, Snape, don’t be mean to him.”

“Oh, so as you as you see your precious Potter is here it’s goodbye Toby and hello Snape, is that it? You stay downstairs. I'll see what he's about.”

“But Harry's my husband!’

“Not tonight he isn’t! You had better get back to Toby in a hurry, Granger, because I'm not holding Potter's hand all night, am I?" Snape snapped.

Snape ran up the stairs and burst into his son’s bedroom.

Harry was completely unconscious, still with his clothes and his glasses on, sprawled across the loft bed, with his old stuffed dragon beside his head.

“Damn you, Potter, you little shit! Fuck it. I’ll deal with you in the morning.” He muttered.

Snape climbed up to the loft, put the bed rail up, took off Harry’s glasses, and his shoes and his socks, and covered him up.

He put Harry's glasses, his mobile, and his wallet on the shelf bolted to the wall by the bed, and climbed down.

Harry opened one eye, and lifted his head from the pillow.

“Oh, hullo, Da. I’ve been on an awful fuckin’ toot.  I need this bed rail, tonight. I suppose I’ll have to start going to WAND meetings, again.”

“That would be an excellent idea, Potter. Although i doubt you'll do any better at it this time than you've done the last quadrillion times. You know I was past all this shite, by the time I was your age. And my war when I was a lad was worse than yours.”

“I know. I’m trying. I’m not as hard of a hard nut as you, Snape. No one is. Well, our Hermione is. But no one else. Do I worry you, Da?”

“Oh, only every day, you spoilt little shit.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m Harry bleedin’ Potter. The Man Who Couldn’t Die.”

“Everyone dies, Potter.”

“I’ll go back on the wagon, Da. I’ll give it another try. I will. Will you call Hermione, and tell her I’m okay?”

“She’s downstairs. I’ll tell her.”

“Oh no. Is it Wednesday? Fuck, Da, I’m sorry. Christ, I didn’t mean to…I’m always fucking things up a treat for you. I have been, since I was ten.”

“That’s what children do for you, Potter. Now you go to sleep. I’ll take Granger to a motel. Or we’ll use the Room of Requirement.”

“Don’t worry about me, Da. I’m almost completely fine.”

“Almost isn’t shite. I’ve been trying to fookin’ well convince you of that since you were ten. Go to sleep. I’ll scream at you in the morning.”

“Okay. G’night, Snape.”

“Good night, Potter.”

                                                                        ***

Harry awoke in the morning, filled with such a sense of peace and happiness that he knew he was in his bedroom, at Spinner’s End.

He thought about the meeting he was missing in London, his weekly report to the Ministry about his activities as the liaison officer between MI5 and the Auror Department.

Hermione knew about it; she would have owled or flooed them, already.

As for his meeting with MI6 considering his more covert activities at the Ministry, well, he hadn’t said when he would be around to see M.

Harry grabbed for his mobile and his glasses.

“Come on. Answer. Fucking answer, it’s your cell, not work’s…Bond? Brilliant! Listen, it is Thursday, isn’t it…well, I’ve been on a fucking toot since Friday…I don’t know, I missed a match of the Killer Queen’s and Friday with Luna, and all sorts of time with me wife…I’m at me Da’s…I know last night was Wednesday, look I’m in trouble. I’ve been Christ knows where and fucked God knows who and I’ve been drinking the gods know what and I’ve got a black eye, a bloody nose and three bags of smack in me pocket, two of which are empty. I hope I didn’t do them…stop laughing, you cunt…no., I mean it…Look would you just tell M something? I can have it together by tomorrow.  Just make something up. I’ve covered for you so many….right, brilliant, I’ll ring you back…I owe you one James. No I don’t know what’ll be worse, facing M or facing me father and me wife…. Well, let’s make it lunch, tomorrow, and no drinks for me….no I never told a soul…I don’t think she’ll even remember, besides we’re sort of friends with the Russians, now…I don’t know. We’ve killed a lot of people, you more than me but still…shit I hear the Old Man coming up the stairs….I’ll tell you tomorrow….Cheers.”

Harry had just put his mobile down when Snape did the old Knock-and-Walk.

“What if I was having a wank, Snape?” harry protested.

“You’ve been having a wank since the end of the war, Potter. Everybody’s seen your with your cock out.” Snape rejoined.

He pulled the chair out from Harry’s desk and lit an English Oval.

“Do you have a pathetic fucking excuse?”

“No. I just had to do it. Sometimes I just have to do it. The fucking pressure inside my brain gets so fucking massive that I have to do something crazy and stupid to myself, or I’ll do it to somebody else. I know you were never like that. I know you’ve been clean and sober for decades and you had it much worse than me. But I’m not you, Da. I can’t stop the noise. I have to be Harry Potter, the Man Who Can’t Die. Until I do.”

Snape took a long drag on his cigarette.

“I ought to put this out in your eye, so you’ll be in enough pain to stop saying stupid, meaningless bullshit like that.”

Harry fell back into bed.

“Gimme a fucking break, Da, as the Americans say.”

Snape pulled out his wand.

“ _Levicorpus_!”

Harry howled his objections to being hung in midair, upsisde-dwon, by his ankle.

“Give you a break? A fucking break? How many more fucking breaks do you want, Potter? You’ve had the good fortune to be handsome, charming and famous since you were a teenager. You’re the Wizarding World’s answer to Errol Flynn. Or Tony Stark, for that matter! Women have been throwing themselves at your feet since you were 14 or 15, you’ve had money, and lots of it since before that, and every time you sneeze, the whole Wizarding World is there with a fookin’ tissue? You’re goddamn right you never had it as hard as me! Hermione had a far worse experience of the war than you did, and your little chum Weasley lost his brother! They're not the mess you are! Hell, most of your class and the years under you who participated in the Batlle Of Hogwarts…I was the fucking interim Headmaster, for the next seven years, I would know! Most of them have done very well. Children who lost brothers, sisters, parents, friends! Some of them were in sorry shape but most of them have straightened out. And look at you, you spoilt little shit! A man in your thirties, playing at the same bollocks you did when you were in your teens! I had you and every little fucking bastard at Hogwarts to look after, by the time I was your age. You’re a disgrace, Potter. To me, To Lily, even to James Potter and I never liked him! There's no pint in sending you to rehab. Take a shower, put your kit on, and get your arse to work!"

Snape stalked out of the room.

Hermione left him hanging so long Harry thought he might pass out from all the blood rushing to his head, but, eventually, she came to his room.

" _Liberacorpus_!"

Harry got to his feet.

"Hermione, i'm sorry. It's out of me system now. I'll be fine, for awhile. The Old Snape, he worries too much about me. I'm not half as crazy as I was when i was in me teens an at university. You understand. Don't you? Maybe this is the lats time. It could be."

Hermione sighed, heavily.

"Harry, the last time will be when I have to go identify your body on the morning after. I know it. You know it. Snape hasn't admitted that to himself, yet. He's still trying to think up ways to save you. Then gain, he is your father, after all, and fathers never give up on their sons. Especially not the Snapes. Come on, we'll floo back to 12 Grimmauld Place, and you can get yourself straightened out."

"You mean he's my stepfather."

"No, Harry, I don't. I know you both, better than any sane woman ought to. Snape's your father, alright."

Despite Hermione's grimness, Harry had to laugh.

Harry had a marvelous laugh, it was wild, unfettered and a little bit unhinged and when he laughed it, it was like he was laughing off all the troubles of the world.

"Don't worry about me, our Hermione. And don't be so fucking gloomy. After all, I'm the Man Who Couldn't Die. Unless the Old Snape is cooking up a cure or kill me. Fuck me, I'll try it. I'm not afraid."

He laughed, again and Hermione had to smile.

Just a little.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next chapter, we;ll go back to Harry's school days and see just how he started becoming the sort of fellow who is convinced that rehab is for quitters, and has Bond, James Bond on speed dial.


End file.
